Death of the Falcon

Chapter 2

One thing I had to say about whatever role Hawk was having me play, it came with nice accommodations. According to the tags on the Gucci luggage that was waiting in the room at the Watergate when I arrived, I was Nick Carter of East 48th Street in Manhattan. I recognized the address as that of the Turtle Bay brownstones our bureau used, as offices, “safe house,” and a New York cover residence. The clothes in the bags were obviously expensive, conservative in color, and their cut suggested the taste of a Western oil millionaire. Those boys in Dallas and Houston may not go in for flashy tweeds and checks, but they like their traveling clothes to be as comfortable as the Levi’s they wear around the old corral. The wide-shouldered, side-vented jackets topped tight-fitting trousers with pockets set in the front, blue-jean style, and wide loops to handle the stiff, brass-buckled belts that were packed with them. The extra soft white cotton shirts had double pockets, with buttons in the front. Everything was the right size, I noted, even the several pairs of three-hundred-dollar hand-tooled boots.

If Hawk wants me to play a wealthy oilman-type, I thought as I unpacked and stored things away in the huge walk-in closet, I don’t mind a bit. The room helped, too. As large as some studio apartments I’d lived in — which is just what it originally was intended to be, because the Watergate was designed as a residence hotel when it first opened — the combination living room-bedroom was about twenty-four feet long and eighteen feet wide. It held a full-size sofa, a couple of side chairs, a large color TV, a complete kitchenette, and a king-size bed was set in an alcove.

Light streamed into the room from the floor-to-ceiling windows that opened onto the terrace. I looked out over the ten-acre Watergate complex, toward the grandly historic Potomac River, and saw four sculls streaking smoothly over the water. Racing season must be on, I realized, as I watched the college crews stroking rhythmically with the oars. I could tell just when the rival coxswains upped the beat, for the shells suddenly shot forward on the swift-flowing current. My appreciation of the close coordination of the rowers was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Hawk, I bet myself, as I picked up the receiver. But the voice that said “Mr. Carter?” told me that this was one time out of a hundred that I was wrong.

“This is Mr. Carter.”

“This is the concierge, Mr. Carter. Your car is at the front door.”

I didn’t know what car he was talking about, but on the other hand, I wasn’t going to argue. I answered simply, “Thanks, I’ll be right down.”

Supposedly, Hawk was the only one who knew Nick Carter was at the Watergate, so I figured he had sent a car for me; I headed for the lobby.

Passing the concierge’s desk on the way to the front door, I discreetly handed the distinguished-looking, black-suited figure behind the counter a five-dollar bill and said breezily, “Thanks for calling about my car.” If Hawk wanted me to be rich, I’d play rich — on AXE’s money.

“Thank you, Mr. Carter.” His refined tones drifted after me as I pushed open the glass door leading to the circular drive that secludes the entrance to the hotel. The doorman started to ask if he should signal for one of the ever-present cabs parked around the driveway, then stopped as I headed for the Continental limousine that was idling just off the curbing. Since it was the only one in sight, I figured it had to be my car. The chauffeur leaning back against its side stiffened to attention as I approached, said softly, “Mr. Carter?” When I nodded, he opened the door.

There was no one inside, which made me a little wary; instinctively, I touched the outlines of my Luger and sheath to reassure myself that my best friends were along, then I settled back in the glove leather upholstery as the driver came around to take his place behind the wheel. He swung the big car around the circle and along the driveway to Virginia Avenue, where he bore right.

When we stopped for a light, I tried the door and it opened without any trouble. That put me a bit more at ease, so I flicked up the panel lid in the armrest and pressed the switch that lowered the glass window separating me from the driver. “Are you sure you know the way?” I asked, trying to keep it light.

“Oh, yes sir,” the driver replied. I waited a minute, expecting him to add something that might tell me where we were headed, but nothing came.

“Do you go there often?”

“Yes sir.” Strike two.

“Is it far?”

“No sir, we’ll be at the White House in just a few minutes.”

Home run. Clear out of the ball park, in fact; visits to the White House weren’t in my usual itinerary. Well, I told myself, overnight you’ve moved up from the Secretary of State to the President. But why?

But it was Hawk, not the President, who told me that I soon would be playing nursemaid to a woman who was called the Silver Falcon, and she was the most potentially explosive woman in the world.

The Silver Falcon.

“Her name is Liz Chanley and she arrives in Washington tomorrow,” Hawk said. “And your job is to make certain that nothing happens to her. I’ve told the President and the Secretary that we will undertake responsibility for her safety until such time as she no longer appears to be in danger.”

As Hawk mentioned the two others in the room with us, I stared at each of them in turn. I couldn’t help it. The President caught me at it and gave a slight nod. The Secretary of State caught me at it, too, but he was too much of a gentlemen to add to my embarrassment by acknowledging the fact of it. My only chance for a comeback lay in looking smart, I decided, so I broke in with, “I know who Liz Chanley is, sir.”

Hawk looked as if he could kill me right then and there for even giving an indication that one of his prize men might not know who everyone of importance is, but I was relieved when, before he could file it away in his mind to dwell on it later, the Secretary of State suddenly asked: “How?”

“I’ve had several assignments in the Mideast, sir, and our backgrounders are quite thorough.”

“What do you know about Liz Chanley?” the Secretary went on.

“That she is the ex-wife of the Shah of Adabi. That her Arabian name is Sherima and that they had triplet daughters about six years ago. And about six months ago she and the Shah were divorced. She’s an American, and her father was a Texas oilman who helped set up the drilling operations in Adabi and became a close friend of the Shah.”

Nobody seemed to want to stop my recital, so T went on: “Right after the divorce, Shah Hassan married the daughter of a Syrian general. Liz Chanley — Sherima is using her American name again — stayed on in the royal palace at Sidi Hassan until about two weeks ago, then she went to England for a visit. Supposedly, she is returning to the States to buy a place in the Washington area and settle down. She has a number of friends here, most of whom she met during the years she made diplomatic visits with the Shah.

“As for this name you’ve been calling her,” I said, “I’ve never heard it. I assume this is classified.”

“In a way, yes,” the Secretary nodded, and a barely perceptible smile crossed his lips. “The Silver Falcon is the name the Shah gave her after they married, to symbolize her new royal position. It was their personal secret Until this problem began.”

The President elaborated. “We have been using it as a code, so to speak.”

“I see,” I replied. “In other words, when it’s not wise to speak of her directly in some situations—”

“She becomes the Silver Falcon,” Hawk finished for mc.

I turned to the President. “Sir, I am sure that there is more I should know of the former Queen, and about Adabi.”

“With your permission, Mr. President, I’ll fill in some details that Mr. Carter may not know,” the Secretary of State began. Receiving a nod of approval, he went on: “Adabi is a small, but powerful nation. Powerful because it is one of the richest of the oil-producing countries and because its army is one of the best trained and equipped in the Mideast. And both of those facts are thanks primarily to the United States. The Shah was educated in this country and it was just about the time he completed his post-graduate studies at Harvard that his father died of bone cancer. The old Shah might have lived longer if there had been adequate medical help available in Adabi, but there wasn’t and he refused to leave his country.

“When Shah Hassan took over as ruler,” the Secretary continued, “he was determined that never again would one of his people want for medical care. He also wanted to make certain that his subjects benefitted from the best educational opportunities that money could buy. But there wasn’t any money in Adabi, because at that time, no oil had been discovered there.

“Hassan realized that his land had essentially the same geological makeup as the other nations which were producing oil, so he asked our government for assistance in exploratory drilling operations. Several of the Texas-based oil companies formed a corporation and sent their drilling experts to Adabi, in response to a request from President Truman. They found more oil than anyone imagined possible and the money started to roll into the treasury at Sidi Hassan.”

The Secretary went on to explain that Hassan’s former wife was the daughter of one of the Texas oil experts in Adabi. Liz Chanley had become a Moslem when she married the Shah. They had been unusually happy together with their three small daughters. She never had a son, but that no longer mattered to Hassan. The marriage contract had specified that the crown would pass on to his younger brother. “Who, I might add, also likes the United States, but not so much as Hassan,” the Secretary pointed out.

“Over the years, particularly since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war,” he continued, “Shah Hassan has managed to bring a moderate voice into Arab councils. But the pressure on him has increased tremendously. Twice in recent years, fanatics have attempted to kill Hassan. Unfortunately for the plotters against the Shah, the assassination attempts only united his people more solidly behind him.”

I couldn’t help but interrupt to ask why Hassan divorced Sherima.

The Secretary of State shook his head. “The divorce was Sherima’s idea. She suggested it after the last attempt on Hassan’s life, but he wouldn’t hear of it. But she kept telling him that if he left her, the other Arab countries might take it as a sign that he was really on their side and call off their campaign to unseat him. She finally convinced him that he had to do it, if not for his own safety, for the sake of their little girls.

“Sherima also was the one who suggested he remarry right away — and she insisted his new wife be Arab. In fact, she was the one who picked the girl after scouting — around for an alliance that might link Hassan to a powerful military man in another country.”

“Why such concern for her safety here?” I asked. It seemed to me, I explained, that once she no longer was the Shah’s wife, she shouldn’t be in any danger.

The President turned to Hawk and said, “I believe you’d better handle this part of the explanation. It was your agency’s sources who provided the information on the plot to kill former Queen Sherima.” He turned from Hawk to me, then back again before he said, “And your agency discovered the part of the plot to ‘prove’ that all during her marriage she was acting as a secret agent of the United States government.”